The Marvellous Mind of a Chocolate Genius
by MissGrotesque
Summary: This story is set during Willy s childhood and it begins on Willy s 10:th birthday (sort of) when he tries to ask his harsh, dentist father for a cake...
1. Willy s birthday (sort of)

**Willy´s birthday (sort of)**

The old, wooden steps creaked underneath Willy´s tiny feet as he went down the stairs. In the vestibule, the light was as dim as usual even though the sun shone remarkably bright outside. It was still winter and quite cold, but despite that Willy had opened the window in his room to let some light in and to breath the wonderful, fresh air. But the rest of the already much too grey house remained grey all through, except through some of the door chinks and windows that were not directed towards another wall. It was as if the light somehow did not reach through the thick brick walls in Willy´s house and Willy was not sure why. Although he was pretty certain that it had something to do with his father. He was without doubt the most colourless person Willy had ever known. At all times, when he wasn´t wearing his usual, white dentist coat, he always wore black or grey, and those were the "colours" of the house. Even all of Willy´s clothing had the same, boring grey and black shades. He went into the kitchen where his father, Wilbur Wonka, already sat by the table, reading a newspaper and having a cup of tea. Opposite of him on the table there was a tea cup for Willy too and next to the big cup there was a small, rectangular shaped parcel. The paper was of the common, cheap brown kind and tied together by the most common, brown strings. And next to the parcel lay £5.

"In this house we use our manners and say 'good morning' as one enters the room", Wilbur said suddenly, his dark, deep voice completely dominating the room. Willy jumped in surprise.

"Good morning", he greeted politely and sat down. "But why do I-"

He didn´t get any further than that because his father immediately interrupted him with a somewhat less stern voice:

"Happy birthday, Willy", he said shortly and finally put the newspaper aside. Then he went on:

"But it is not _really_ your birthday today, if we are to be correct. Actually it is two years left to go until your proper birthday arrives and by then you will turn twelve."

"Yes, I know", Willy said quitely. "That´s the way it is when your birthday only occurs every fourth year."

Wilbur gave him a slightly sly grin that showed his nearly perfect, white teeth.

"Affirmative. But if you count all the _real_ birthdays you have had so far, then you are not turning twelve next time, but only _three._ "

He grinned spitefully at Willy, who sighed sadly and looked down, his eyes fixed upon the edge of the table. It was the 28th of February and he happened to be born on the day that nobody wanted to be born on. It was the worst birthday imaginable; the 29th of February. Today was therefore the closest he could get to his birthday and because of that he was always celebrating on the 28th. Although calling it "celebrating" was really an exaggeration of the most extreme sort. The so called "celebrating" usually meant a penny and a small present in the morning and that was it. His unusual birthday also gave people a strange opportunity to joke madly about his age – a chance which his father rarely ever missed. Neither Wilbur or Willy himself liked Willy´s birthday and they both had their reasons.

"Are you not going to open your present?" Wilbur asked suddenly and nodded towards the parcel in front of Willy. Willy looked at it, tilted his head on one side and then he gave his father a small gaze.  
"I already know what it is…" he said in an unenthusiastic, careful voice. "It´s the same every year…"

"Nonsense!" Wilbur cut off. "Go ahead, open it now!"  
Willy reluctantly put down the tea cup on the table and reached out for the present. He tore off the paper in fast movements and was careful not to look at Wilbur while doing so, afraid that his father would notice how utterly bored his son actually was. Inside the parcel there was a small box made out of cardboard and its contents were nothing more or less than a toothbrush. A completely regular, white toothbrush. Willy picked it up and looked at it for a second. He tried not to grimace and wondered if he could use it as a painting brush. On the other side of the table, Wilbur was watching him curiosly.

"Well?" he said. "Are you not going to-"

"Thank you", Willy interrupted quickly before he recieved any further remarks. "It looks… er, nice."

His father seemed pleased. Then he rose up and walked towards the fridge.

"What would you like to eat?" he asked.

"I´ve got tea", Willy said.

"But you are going to eat _something_ too. You can have a toast if you like?"

No answer. Wilbur turned around.

"Would you like a toast?" he repeated, not particularly harsch. He just wanted to know. Then Willy nodded in silence, where he still sat, holding his tea cup.

"Good boy", Wilbur said and picked a slice of bread, butter and cheese. "You have to answer when I am talking to you. You understand that, don´t you? Otherwise I won´t know anything."  
He put the slice of brown bread in the toaster and when it was finished he spread some butter over it. It melted against the hot surface.

"No cheese, thank you", Willy uttered in a low voice. Wilbur raised an eyebrow at him in surprise.  
"What? No cheese?"

Willy shook his head.

"No, just butter."

Wilbur only shrugged at that and put the cheese back in the fridge. Then he gave the bread to Willy, who took it and began to eat obediently. Wilbur sat down on his chair again and continued reading his newspaper. They sat there for a while in silence before Wilbur once again rose up, this time to refill his cup. Willy had just finished his toast and tea. He looked down and tried to appear calm, but his unique, brown eyes with their strange, violet shade, were darting nervously around the room. He tied his fists together and took a deep breath.

"Dad?" he said in a small, high-pitched voice.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Er… you know… it…it is…" The words seemed to get stuck in his throat. He tied his fists even harder so that his knuckles turned white.

"Get to the point, boy!" demanded Wilbur. "What is it that you want to say?"

Hearing that didn´t make Willy feel any better at all, but it made him hurry and he did his best to put himself together.

"Yeah, well… It is my birthday today… er, sort of."

"Yes", said Wilbur slowly and a suspicious look came over his face. "I know that."

"And the other kids, they always… they always…" Willy grimaced. He sounded too pitiful.

"They always _what?_ " Wilbur asked tiredly. It was obvious that he had had enough of Willy´s waffling.

"They always get a cake on their birthdays."

 _Crash!_ The big tea cup slipped through Wilbur´s fingers. It smashed loudly to the floor into a thousands of pieces and the tea splashing all over the porcelain mess. Willy jumped. He almost jumped off his chair. He stared at the mess on the floor, wide-eyed and terrified of what he had achieved. Then he swallowed hard and very, very carefully met Wilbur´s gaze. Wilbur on the other hand, was standing like petrified on the floor. He did not move an inch and he stared at Willy; his expression showing a strange mix of surprise and disgust.

"Sorry", Willy whimpered, his little voice more high-pitched than ever. His father sighed heavily and shook his head slowly, his eyes still focused on Willy.

"We have already talked about this", he said sternly. "You know that."

"Yes, but-" Willy tried but Wilbur interrupted him:

"No 'buts', Willy! Not in my house! You are very much aware of what happens to your teeth if you eat something as bad as cake! Cake _destroys_ them."

"But it seems so tasty…" Willy said quietly. "Everybody say it tastes wonderful. I am the only one who´s not allowed to eat cake."

"You will understand when you get older", Wilbur said. "You might even thank me then."

The tall, imposing figure of Wilbur Wonka towered over little Willy. Slowly and nearly soundless, Willy slithered off the chair. He was careful not to forget his tea cup and the tooth brush. He put the £5 in his pocket. Then he made a small jump over the smashed cup on the floor to get to the sink. He stood there, washing his own tea cup while Wilbur still didn´t move a muscle. He was just standing there with his back on Willy and the only sound made was the water coming from the tap. Willy had expected that his father at least would start to clean up the watery mess on the floor, but that didn´t happen. Willy washed the cup as fast as he could and then he quickly disappeared out of the kitchen, quiet and fast as a scared rabbit. Not until then, Wilbur grabbed the broom and started to clean up in silence.


	2. Snowball fights and drawing pins

**Since I got a few, but good reviews of the first chapter, I thought I´d give it another shot...**

* * *

 **Willy´s birthday, part II (or: "Snowball fights and drawing pins")**

Willy hurried up to his room. It was amazing how fast he could run up the stairs without making a sound. He practically flew over the steps. Back in his grey- coloured room, he collected his school bag and made sure he hadn´t forgot any of his homework. Then he put the new toothbrush in one of the desk drawers and ran back downstairs. His father hadn´t left the kitchen yet and for some reason Willy thought he´d better leave before Wilbur caught sight of him. He quickly put on his winter boots, the thick jacket, scarf and gloves. For a brief second he considered calling good bye. Wilbur had after all being very firm on the point that one should always be polite and say "good morning". Maybe he´d get angry if Willy didn´t say anything? But on the other hand, if he were still upset about the cake issue, he would surely only become even angrier if he´d have to talk to Willy again at the moment. In the end Willy chose the first option and rushed out of the door.

He blessed the sunlight that met his eyes. It was a wonderful morning. The sky was brightly blue and and the heavy layers of snow made the streets glitter. The town had awoken and now everybody were on their way to their jobs or schools. Willy´s school were located on the other side of the town so on his way there he had to pass a lot of different shops and squares. First there was the bakery, that was owned by a nice, fat man named Mr. Baker. There were also a small café and a shop in the same building where he sold fresh bread, cookies and cakes. A wonderful smell of fresh bread, cinnamon and vanilla always surrounded the whole place, especially in the mornings when everything had just left the oven, ready to be sold during the day. Willy breathed it in and a warm feeling of pleasure filled his cold body right to the bone. Through the windows he could just manage to get a glimpse of some of the very big, beautifully decorated cakes and he sadly wished he could have one. Then he hurried on and the shop next to the bakery was a barber shop, which Willy actually was rather interested in too. Not that he ever needed to go there, but simply because of the barber´s peculiar name. He was a tall, slim man with grim eyes and his name was the very suitable Mr. Todd. Willy would have given anything in the world to find out the man´s first name. He hoped it to be "Sweeney" but that would just be too good to be true. He went on and passed a supermarket, the bank, a couple of restaurants, his favourite clothing store where everything was colourful and of course he wasn´t allowed to buy anything simply because of that. Though once he had sneaked in and bought a pair of bright red gloves. He thought they would be a nice variation from his usual, black ones. But his father had found them and very firmly said that they weren´t "appropriate" enough. And that had been the end of Willy´s only coloured garments.

Further on he came to pass another favourite store: the small art shop, located in a street corner, where he usually bought his paints. The owner was a friendly, neat woman named Mrs. Violet Green, and she was rather fond of Willy and occasionally offered him discounts whenever he came to buy anything. Then there was another interesting place; the music shop. It was small and dark but contained an unexpected treasure of amazing sounds and different instruments. Willy had been in there a couple of times, but never dared to buy anything, not even the smallest harmonica. He had an idea about Wilbur not appreciating music in any form. It was always very quiet at home, except at those times when Willy happened to hear the ferocious sound of the dental drill and screaming patients when Wilbur tended to them in his most preferred way. Dental drills and painful screams combined - that was Wilbur´s kind of music.

Willy ran across the big square in the middle of the town. There was a big, old gothic church, towering over the rest of the town and nearby was the pompous city hall, and next to the city hall, in another very old building of victorian architecture, was the library, where Willy liked to spend his afternoons whenever he could.

Not far from school there was also a small, but notorius candy shop. It was known to be one of the best candy shops in town; you could find all chocolates, lollipops and jelly beans of the finest quality in there, but its owner were none else than the terrifying Miss Evilina Rothole; an ugly, malodorous woman of middle age with greasy, half grey hair, dirty fingernails and evil, sharp eyes that could easily scare any any child away from her candy with just one gaze. Her big, fat and lousy bulldog always slept around the corner as well, ready to attack if you ever dared to try and steal anything from the shop. To the children in town, buying candy from her had become something of a game. If you had the guts to do it, or even _stole_ something and got away with it, then you´d be treated like a hero in school for a week.

Willy had never put as much as a foot in there.

The school itself was a dark, imposing building with a big, round clock ticking on the high front wall, above the entrance. It was twenty past eight, which meant that the bell would ring in no less than ten minutes. Many children were playing in the snow outside. Willy happened to be caught in a snowball fight as he passed by and he felt the ice cold snowball melting against the back of his head. He quickly bent down to make a snowball of his own to get his revenge. He threw it away and hit a boy straight in the face. The boy stopped and gasped.

"Not in the face!" he cried out angrily but Willy just giggled and thought that his victim reminded him a bit of Santa Claus. Beside from being all white in the face, he was dressed in a red jacket and had a quite chubby figure. Before anyone got a chance to hit him with another snowball, Willy ran away and hurried up the steps to front door and pushed it open. It wasn´t much warmer inside so everyone kept their jackets on for as long as possible. In the classrooms, outwear was strictly forbidden. A few of the good-hearted, more empathic teachers weren´t really that hard on it, though. Willy´s teacher wasn´t one of them. He followed the long corridor all the way to his classroom and there he slumped down against the wall, waiting in silence. The first lesson was going to be English and he made sure he had got the right books with him. He was just about to close the bag when he heard a familiar voice in front of him:

"There you are! What are you doing here?"

Willy looked up and saw Terrence, a taller, thin boy of the same age as himself. His shoes and trousers were all covered in mud and melting snow dripped from his jacket, resulting in a small puddle around his feet.

"Why are you sitting here all alone? You missed the snowball fight!" Terrence went on.

"No, I didn´t", Willy said honestly. Terrence raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"You didn´t? But I didn´t see you!" he said.

Willy smiled a little, showing his too big, milky white teeth.

"I hit Martin in the face", he said, a bit slyly.

"In the face? But you´re not supposed to hit in the face!" Terrence objected.

"I know that", Willy admitted quietly, the grin still on his face. "But it was fun."

Suddenly, Terrence caught sight of the English books lying in Willy´s lap, and he let out a groan of misery.

"Oh, I forgot! We´ve got English test today! And I haven´t even read about the stuff once! Have you?"

"Not really", Willy said in a flippant tone, much lower than Terrence´s. "But I usually get all A´s in English anyway."

"You´re right…"

Terrence let out another groan before he slumped down against the opposite wall. His long legs outstretched so that they almost reached across the floor.

"Happy birthday, by the way", he said. "I almost forgot that too. Sorry."

Willy snorted.

"Yeah, thanks", he said, sounding bored at the subject.

"How old are you now then?" Terrence teased and a broad grin came across his face. "Three?"

Willy grimaced but didn´t say anything.

"What did you get then?" Terrence asked eagerly.

Willy looked up at him with a puzzled expression on his face.

"What I have got?" he said, confused.

Terrence laughed.

"Presents, stupid!" he cried. "Didn´t you get anything?"

"Oh", Willy finally realized what Terrence was talking about. "Er, yes. I got five pounds."

Terrence frowned in surprise.

"That´s all?"

Willy didn´t get a chance to answer, because now the other pupils were storming along the corridor and the rest of Willy´s classmates gathered around the door, all laughing and chattering loudly, until their teacher, Miss. Pepper, stomped towards them. Her heavy steps echoed between the walls. Immediately everyone stopped talking and it went absolutely quiet. A big boy called Sam had pushed himself against the spot where Willy sat so that he wasn´t able to get up. It was too crowded and when Miss Pepper opened the door and allowed her young students inside, Willy were the last one to go in. When he stumbled over the threshold he got a disapproval look from Miss Pepper´s piercing eyes and some of the girls giggled slightly. Sam looked rather pleased too, where he sat in the corner of the room. Willy´s desk were in the second row to the right, and he tiptoed to his chair and sat down.

"Good morning, children", greeted Miss Pepper´s stern voice as she approached the master´s desk to collect a bunch of papers. "As you know, we´ll start with an English test this morning and I certainly do hope that you´ve done your homework or this will probably be very difficult for you."

She showed off a spiteful smirk and Terrence looked almost terrified at her last words. Miss Pepper started to hand out the tests, then she looked at her wristwatch and said:

"You´ve got one hour from now. Please, start."

Willy carefully began to read through the test like the rest of the class. There were three pages and it didn´t seem very difficult at all, Willy thought to himself. He began to write. About five minutes later he heard some quiet, nervous giggles all around him and he looked up to see what was going on but couldn´t see anything out of the ordinary. Miss Pepper had the shape of a large fridge and she paced back and forth in front of the blackboard with her hawkish, dangerous eyes fixed upon the children. At one moment, when she was looking in Willy´s opposite direction, Terrence, who was sitting right behind Willy, leant forward and whispered:

"Someone´s put a drawing pin on Pepper´s chair!"

Willy´s eyes widened in terror. The person who dared to play such a prank on Miss Pepper, must be out of his (or her) wits. Although Willy had a good idea of who it might be. And now Miss Pepper was finally approaching her chair! All of the children held their breath. Miss Pepper sat down and then…

She startled (and the children did the same) and then her face slowly seemed to swell up and it turned red like a tomato. The second thereafter she jumped highly into the air and when her colossal weight hit the floor again with a loud _thud_ , she almost made Willy (who was small for his age) jump out of his chair too. She gave up a terrible, shrill cry and then she started to jump around on the floor in no smoother way than an elephant kid, grasping her huge backside with both hands. It looked a bit like some sort of strange war dance. In the corner, Sam and his friend Peter hid their faces in their hands, giggling uncontrollably. If Miss Pepper were ever to find out who the guilty one was, that student would be done for, they all knew that. Some of them wore amused grins on their faces but some of the others didn´t even dare to move a muscle. Willy stared like mesmerized at the remarkable spectacle taking place front of him and the corners of his mouth began to twitch nervously. Then, when he just couldn´t stand it any longer, he burst into peals of high-pitched, twittering laughter that filled the whole classroom. Instantly everyone, including Sam and Peter, turned quiet and stared at him like he had just been condemned. Not until a minute later or so, he felt the deadly gazes upon him and immediately turned quiet. But it was too late. Miss Pepper´s eyes were fixed upon him, eyes that could have been capable of brutal murder. She seemed to have got rid of most of the drawing pins from her backside (because as it happened, it was more than one) and it didn´t look like she felt any pain anymore whatsoever. Now she gave the same impression as a hungry, angry lion.

"Young Mr. Wonka", she snarled, showing her ugly teeth as she slowly approached him. Her voice was worryingly calm. "Could you please tell me which one of you all, little brutes, who is impudent enough to put these drawing pins on my chair?"

Willy gulped. He knew who it was for sure, but the words again seemed to get stuck in his throat. His eyes darted around the room, looking for an eventual escape without success.

"I… I…" he began in a very small voice, but then Miss Pepper all of sudden lunged forward over his desk, gripped him by the ear and dragged him to his feet. For a moment, Willy almost thought that the ear was going to come off.

"Aaa-aouch!It wasn´t me! It wasn´t me!" he cried out in pain.

"WELL? Who was it then?" spat Miss Pepper and her grip tightened around Willy´s tiny ear. The saliva rained over Willy´s face.

"Sam of course!" Willy cried.

It was always Sam. Followed by Peter.

Miss Pepper stared at him suspiciously. She didn´t seem entirely convinced.

"You´re trying to put the blame on someone else, aren´t you? You little twit!" She snapped and Willy tried to shook his head in protest but her grip was too firm.

"It´s _always_ Sam", he whimpered. "Have _I_ ever done something like that? It´s stupid!"

"About _that_ you are most certainly right", snarled Miss Pepper threateningly. Then she let out a grunt, gave Willy a rough shaking before she finally let go of him and stomped towards Sam instead, snorting like a rhinoceros. Sam, who had been watching Willy´s roasting with great pleasure, now turned pale. Miss Pepper gripped him by the ear and then marched him out of the classroom in heavy strides. Sam glared at Willy as they passed by, but Willy didn´t care. He slumped back into his chair and let out a deep sigh of relief, but he was a little too quick.

"Willy! You´ll get two hours detention this afternoon!" Miss Pepper´s voice called from outside the classroom and Willy slumped even lower into the chair. In the corner behind him, Peter smiled. Terrence leaned forward again and whispered:

"Willy, would you like to go to my house when, er… when you´ve finished detention? You gotta do something fun on your birthday!"

"It´s _not_ my birthday", Willy muttered irritably. The girl sitting in front of him heard him and started to snigger slightly. Then she whispered something to another girl sitting beside her and they both burst into twittering laughter. The second girl turned around. She was pretty big for her age and her name was Nancy.

"Oh, Willy, didn´t you get a birthday this year either? Poor you", she teased and everyone laughed, including Terrence. Willy only rolled his eyes in annoyance. How did it come that the _one_ birthday that hardly ever occured, were the one that _everyone_ always remembered? It was quite weird when you thought about it.

"Oh, shut up, you twerps", Willy snapped resentfully in a low voice, but nobody seemed to hear him. He grimaced and as they didn´t go on with the teasing this time, he turned his attention to the English test again. Everybody else had nearly forgotten about it by now. He continued writing his answers, trying to comfort himself by the thought that he at least would get some high points.


	3. The Metalhead

**Since I´ve been working on some other writing projects lately, I haven´t had much time for this one. But here´s the third chapter finally! And yes, I changed the title of the story to what I originally had in mind.**

 **I always appreciate reviews.**

* * *

 **The Metalhead**

Slowly, the spring had come and the weather was getting milder by each day. The snow was gone and replaced by many little puddles along the streets of the big town where Willy lived. The sun had risen again after a long winter but by the end of April it had fully come back to life and spread its joyful light all over the sky every day.

On a particulary beautiful day Willy sat by the desk in his room, constructing different painting brushes made out of toothbrushes and once in a while he would look out thorugh the window and enviously watch all the children who happily passed by, eating huge ice creams.

Over the years, Willy had become very good at finding ways to make the tooth brushes into useful tools for his painting. For example, he had created a certain brush which had brushes on both ends. It was perfect for making circular patterns (like suns or moons) on paper and he could paint with two colours at the same time. Then there was another one, on which he had got rid of some of the tiny straws on the brush. That way he could make really thin lines. He also had made a very particular one where he had tied many tooth brushes together beside each other to make them into one, really wide brush. He kept them all hidden in his lowest drawer, underneath his box of acryl and watercolours. He also owned a few ordinary pencils, which he had once bought from the art shop in town. Wilbur didn´t forbid him from painting, although he didn´t want the finished work spread all over the house so all of Willys drawings and sketches and paintings were practically covering the walls in his room. In that way, Willys room alone actually was pretty colourful. But if Wilbur ever found out about what kind of fate most of all the tooth brushes were to meet, Willy were almost entirely sure that he would never be allowed to paint again.

Right now, he was constucting a special kind of multi-brush, made out of five tooth brushes and some thin steel wire and strings. He had cut the brushes into different thickness and made each one of them as long as one of his fingers. The plan was to, in a way as flexible and practical as poosible, tie the brushes to his fingers so that the tip of the brushes would be just at the same level as his fingertips and then he would be able do paint with five different brushes and effects at the same, when each one of his fingers were a different kind of brush. He was just trying a new way of tying them together, when Wilbur´s dark voice broke through his wall of concentration:

"Willy, come down here!"

Willy dropped the strings on the table. Usually that line didn´t mean that anything good was coming.

"What is it?" he cried anxiously.

"Your braces are ready. We need to try them on. Get down here now!"

Willy grimaced. Obviously he hadn´t been the only inventor in the house lately. He quickly put the brushes back in the drawer and then reluctantly left the room.

"Coming…" he mumbled when he actually intended to say it aloud.

He wondered what his father might have in store for him. He had seen a girl in school wearing braces and they´ve looked quite awful. Like Willy, Wilbur was good at making things and he had made a lot of braces of different designs for his many customers over the years. Willy had seen some of them too and of course they looked even worse than those on the girl at school.

"Where… where are you?" said Willy when he reached the end of the stairs, surprised not to find his father standing there, waiting for him.

"In the office, Willy", came the low voice of Wilbur. Willy obeyed and when he entered the room he saw Wilbur sitting by his large desk and in front of him there was something really peculiar and at first Willy didn´t even realize what it was. It looked like a complicated mess of steel wires, plugs and screws. When Willy finally understood what he was looking at, he turned pale in the face. The construction of the weird thing had easily been complicated enough for him to love, if it wasn´t for the very (literally) heavy fact that he would have to wear it.

"Is… is that…?" he tried, sounding terrified and pointed at the braces. Wilbur turned around and gave him a wide, toothy grin.

"Yes, it is. Look at my finished work."

And Willy did indeed look. He couldn´t take his eyes of it. It looked so monstrous and a normal person would probably also describe it as "messy-looking", but Willy wasn´t such a person.

"Do I really have to wear _that?"_ he asked, still sounding terrified.

His father looked a bit offended at the comment on his own work.

"Yes, you do", he said sternly and his grin faded away. "You know that your teeth are not growing correctly."

"Er, yes, I know…" Willy mumbled, but even so wondered why these braces looked worse than any others he had ever seen. Was his tooth-problem really _that_ big and unusual?

Well, my teeth _are_ pretty big… he tried to explain to himself. And a bit messy… Maybe the bigger the teeth were, the bigger braces you got? And if the teeth were messy, the braces simply had to have a complicated construction? No, that didn´t make sense. Or did it? That girl in school certainly didn´t have as big teeth as him. Actually a very few of the other children had, when he came to think of it.

"Don´t just stand there. Come here so I can try it on you!" demanded Wilbur and Willy slowly stepped forward. Wilbur picked up the set of braces and put them carefully on Willy´s head.

"There we go…" he said, satisfied.

During the first five seconds, Willy almost felt as if his legs were going to give in under the new weight. It could just as well had been a knight helmet. He didn´t say anything while Wilbur tied all the wires together and when it was done, Willy felt awful in the mouth. The metal was cold against his teeth and the steel forced his mouth open into a constrained, bizarre smile. He tried to close his mouth, but in vain. Then he carefully licked the metal. It tasted like iron. He tried to open up his mouth a bit more. It worked, but by every move he made, he felt the wires going like some sort of old, mechanical machine. It was a weird feeling and also very distracting.

"It´s…" he uttered, surprised that he could utter anything at all with this thing on and he felt the machine working. "It´s too tight."

"It will feel like that in the beginning", said Wilbur, who didn´t seem to bother. "You will get used to it. You just wait and see."

Willy walked up the mirror in the same room and then he recoiled. At the sight of himself the first thing he thought about was something called a cyborg, a kind of half-human, half-machine, that he had read about in a comic book. His whole head were caged and that awful, forced grin on his face looked quite disturbing. A horrible thought struck him: he wasn´t going to be able to chew with his mouth shut! He realised that he would have to eat his lunch alone in school from now, because none would like to sit beside someone who couldn´t eat with a shut mouth. Willy himself found it revolting when other people did so.

But the thought of feeling a bit like a cyborg was actually not _that_ horrible and for a moment he even thought of asking his father for a cool robot eye as well. Or why not two? But then he realized the sad fact that Wilbur was a dentist, not an optician and therefore he probably would be both unwilling _and_ unable to make any robot eyes.


	4. Ruthie and the sugarfree gum

**Hi! So, here´s finally a new chapter! :) As always, I appreciate reviews, but please, don´t just tell me that I´m a slow writer. Because I haven´t forgot about this story and I will do my best to finish it. But as it is now, I´m working on like 5 different stories at the same time and unfortunately this can´t be my number 1 priority. Therefore it _will_ take some time.  
I´m very grateful that there actually are _some_ people reading this and I really appreciate reviews, but I prefer those about the story itself, not just questions like "No update?", "Where´s the other chapters?" and so on, because that only make me feel stressed and I don´t want to finish this in a hurry.  
Besides from all of that: Great thanks to all who are reading and appreciate my story :) **

* * *

**Ruthie and the sugarfree gum**

"What the hell is _that?_ "

Terrence stared wide-eyed at the monstrous steel around Willy´s head and Willy tried to grimace in annoyance but couldn´t, thanks to the wires keeping his mouth open.

"It´s just braces, stupid", he muttered as he walked towards the school entrance and Terrence quickly hurried after him. Everywhere the other children stared, laughed and pointed at him. Willy glared at them, although he couldn´t really blame them. If it had been someone else wearing this awful thing, he surely would have stared and laughed too. But unluckily, that wasn´t the case. Willy and Terrence had just reached the bottom of the stairs to the big front door, when the door suddenly swung open and Sam, followed by Peter and a boy named James, came out. When they saw Willy, they all burst into peals of high laughter. It took no less than a minute for them to finally calm down and even then, neither of them could look at Willy without starting to snigger.

"S…Sp…Speak of the devil!" Sam stuttered between his giggles. "We were just talking about you, Wonka."

Willy frowned.

"You were?" he said, suspiciously.

Sam nodded.

"Oh, yes! We heard some of the teachers as they were discussing the results of our last history test…"

Then he burst into laughter again.

"So what?" said Willy, who looked confused. "What does that have to do with me?"

"They talked about you!" Peter cried and gave him a mocking smile. "Miss Pepper said you´ve done it again! I don´t know how it´s even possible!"

And he laughed too. Willy was getting really annoyed by now and his eyes were going slightly darker than usual. The mouth however, kept its forced, disturbing smile.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded to know, but his voice sounded small in comparison to theirs. "If you´d be so kind and get to the point?"

"I meant that you screwed it again, freak!" Sam shouted. "You mixed up history with those storybooks of yours! It was something about you writing 'Humpty Dumpty' instead of Napoleon…"

Willy turned quiet for a moment. He let his eyes wander from each one of them and suddenly he became aware of that Terrence had disappeared from his side. Willy didn´t look very surprised, though.

"Well", he said and chose his words carefully. "I _do_ have a really vivid imagination."

They all nodded and grinned in agreement.

"You can say that again!" Peter cried. "I don´t know how somebody can get something _that_ wrong? I mean, what´s the similarities between Humpty Dumpty and Napoelon?"

"What would _you_ know about that?" Willy asked and his eyes were actually smiling now; a sparkling purple shade dancing in them. "You never read."

Peter looked as if somebody had just slapped him in the face. He turned red and slowly stepped towards Willy.

"What is this thing you´ve got on your head then?" he spat as he started to walk in circles arund Willy, like a lion surrounding its prey.

"Er, I did hope you´d be able to see that", Willy answered courageously. He pointed at his teeth and the metal wires that held them in a tight grip.

"It is at least", he said, "very clear to me when I look in the mirror."

"Oh, and what a sight that must be!" Peter shouted angrily. "Are you perhaps standing there every morning and wonder if your clothes match your whale teeth?"

They all burst into laugther again and now some of the other children curiously gathered around them to see what was going on. Willy stayed put, but went quiet for a while. He watched Peter, Sam and James carefully… their open mouths and their horrible, never ending laughs…

"It should be easier to match _my_ teeth", he pointed out. "They´re at least white."

He shot a daring glance at Sam, who stood there, grinning with his brown, dirty teeth which had old food stuck in between them. It looked like they haven´t tasted as much as a drip of toothpaste in months and his breath would make anyone recoil.

At that moment the bell rang. It was time to go in. A storm of pupils pushed through the door and Sam gripped Willy by the shoulder.

"Just you wait until lunch break!" he snarled.

Then he let go of Willy and stomped in through the maze of young students, some of them stepping aside to make room for him and a little girl tripped over by the wall. Willy recognized her as Ruthie Smallwood. She was one year above him, but tiny for her age and the whole school knew who she was for one simple reason: she always carried sweets in her pockets. She was like a walking lollipop, a wonderful smell of sugar and candy surrounding her all the time, wherever she went. The other children always begged her for candy and sometimes she was generous. Sometimes she was not and if the teachers ever found out, they always took away the candy from her. During a break Willy had once spotted Miss Glutton (Ruthie´s teacher) as she gulfed down a giant chocolate bar all alone in her classroom. Miss Glutton was about as short as she was wide and she had a toad-like, hungry face and everybody knew that her pupils had a strong tendency to dilate vigorously when food was anywhere close by. Although of course Miss Glutton herself to denied this particular fact at all costs.

Ruthie Smallwood got on her feet and quickly picked up a little box of chewing gums that had fallen out of her pocket when she fell. She ran away and Willy, who were going in the same direction, followed her. Ruthie´s light brown, neat ponytails dangled from her head in front of him. Their classrooms were just next to each other and when they got there, Terrence suddenly seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"What happened? How did it go?" he asked eagerly and Willy gave him an ignorant glance.

"Not that bad", he said. "What happened to you? What have _you_ been doing?"

"Er", said Terrence awkwardly. "I… I just forgot…"

"Forgot what?" Willy sounded highly doubtful.

"That…that I had an appointment with… with the school nurse", said Terrence in a most unconvincing tone.

"You´re a bad liar", said Willy in a cool voice and then they entered the classroom.

When they sat there while Miss Pepper handled out their history test results, Willy appreciated the fact that his desk weren´t in the middle of the classroom. Everybody´s eyes were fixed upon him like he was some sort of alien from outer space. He had never ever been so stared at before and he turned around to face Terrence and whispered:

"Are all of you having a staring competition or what?"

Even Miss Pepper was looking strangely at him, although she tried to hide it when she handled Willy his test. Willy reluctantly looked down at the paper and frowned when he realized that Sam had been right about his Humpty Dumpty-Napoleon mistake. But on the other hand, Sam´s result would still be much worse than his. They always were. He dared to glance behind him and saw how Sam carefully folded his test into an airplane. For a moment, Willy truly felt like doing the same, just for fun. But he was sitting too close to Miss Pepper´s desk. When you were sitting in the back row, like Sam, you could much more easily get away with something like that, unseen. If Willy however did it, the risk of getting caught in action were much higher.

The first lesson was one of Willy´s favourite subjects: art. Although his drawings and sketches were always too bizarre an strange for Miss Pepper´s approval. There was one thing though that not even she could deny: Willy´s brilliant technique with the pencil. He usually got a C in the end of every term. Willy himself thought that he deserved an A. Or at least a B. Terrence always got F´s, and if it hadn´t been for those times when Willy offered to help him, his grades in art would have been even worse. That was of course, on those rare occasions when Miss Pepper leaved the classroom long enough for Willy to sketch something useful on Terrence´s paper.

While Willy carefully painted the bandages on a very distressed mummy riding a red bicycle, he tried to figure out a plan for the oncoming lunch break. Every once in a while he would look at the clock on the wall to see how much time there was left.

Maybe he could just hide in the cupboard? As it was, a large, heavy cupboard stood just at the end of the corridor and over time it had proved to be brilliant hiding place. It was big and roomy, with lots of things and robes to hide in between and so far, he had never been found in there. Of course, it was much because of his own size as well. But if he was going to hide, he had to get out of the classroom before Sam or Peter so that they wouldn´t see where he was heading. He cast an eye on Sam, who was still making airplanes, but now using the papers they were supposed to paint on.

The art lesson went on for about an hour and after that it was mathematics for two hours. Willy found that incredibly stupid. Math wasn´t his kind of subject, although he had always managed to get along without much trouble and his grades were acceptable. Terrence on the other hand, was absolutely brilliant in math and he put away the painting brushes with pure joy as the new lesson began. They had just started learning equations and Terrence loved it. Willy thought it was pretty boring but he used a certain trick that sometimes worked a little: if the book were telling him to count money for example, he would choose to count something more fun instead, like pink elephants or colourful candy.

When the lesson finally was over by lunch and Miss Pepper clapped her huge hands together to shout that it was time for break, Willy put the book and the pencils back in his locker as fast as he could and then he quickly ran out of the classroom before everybody else. The corridor was still quite empty when he headed for the cupboard and jumped in. Inside, he struggled to get comfortable among brooms, vacuum cleaners and some old teachers robes. It was a matter of seconds before the corridor outside became filled with running and shouting about from students, eager to get out in the fresh air. Willy stood dead quiet against the wall while he (just as eagerly) waited for all of them to get out. It was pitch-black darkness all around him, except for a thin line between the doors, where a string of light found its way in. After a good ten minutes or so, he finally dared to step out again. Carefully he looked around. None was nearby to be seen. The long, grey and dusty corridor lay empty before him. Quickly, he tiptoed his way to one of the windows and peeked out. He saw the other children playing around in their usual way: some of the girls were skipping, most of the boys played football but on a bench under a big tree, a mixed group of both boys and girls were sitting together and played cards.

Willy was looking for Sam and Peter and he found them under the tree as well. Although they weren´t playing cards. They were just standing there, gazing around the schoolyard like they were looking for someone. Willy had an awfully good idea about who that might be and he continued to stare at them to make sure that they wouldn´t suddenly burst into the school without him noticing.

"What are you doing, standing here all alone?"

Willy jumped at the sound of an unknown voice and turned around. Behind him was Ruthie, the little girl with ponytails and who always smelled like candy. She stared at him curiously with big, round eyes and tilted her head to one side.

"I…" Willy stuttered, not sure what to say. "I…"

"You don´t want to go out there with that thing, I suppose", Ruthie said matter-of-factly and pointed at Willy´s braces. "It´s understandable. I don´t want to go out either. But for me it´s a matter of not getting robbed."

Willy frowned in confusion.

"Robbed?" he asked.

"Yes", said Ruthie. "Sometimes they rob me of my candy when I won´t give it to them."

"Well, that´s understandable too", said Willy.

"You´re not going to rob me, are you?" Ruthie asked. "Because I wasn´t thinking about giving you any. At least not today."

"Oh, that´s allright", said Willy. "I´m not allowed to eat candy anyway."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"You´re not allowed to eat candy? What a dreadful life that must be! But why?"

"My dad says it´s not good for your teeth", Willy said and shrugged. When he uttered the reason like that, it somehow sounded a bit lame in his mouth and Ruthie seemed to think among the same lines.

"My mum doesn´t think it´s good for my teeth either", said Ruthie. "But she has never forbidden me entirely from eating candy. Well, except for once, when I got five cavities around the same time. After that I wasn´t allowed to eat any sweets for three months! It was unbearable. Did you use to eat a lot of candy too?"

Willy shook his head.

"No", he said, not wanting to admit that he had never even tried sweets of any kind in his whole life.

"That´s weird", said Ruthie. "So you´ve never had any cavities then?"

"No, never", said Willy as he thought about the only good thing with having a dentist father.

"My dad is a dentist", he told her. "He doesn´t approve of any sweets."

"Ah, I see", Ruthie looked like she understood, but Willy highly doubted that she did. Then she pointed at his braces again.

"What´s wrong with your teeth?" she asked.

"Dad says that they grow weird", said Willy reluctantly. "But beside from that they´re completely healthy."

"Yes… they´re very white", said Ruthie, eyeing his big teeth and Willy wished that she wouldn´t.

"I also wore braces once", she said. "But they weren´t near as big and messy as yours."

"I can imagine", Willy said with a snort.

"You can?" Ruthie suddenly sounded genuinely surprised.

"Yes, I can", Willy said in an offended voice. "You have no idea of how many braces I´ve seen on other people through my life. I just have to look at dad´s patients as they leave."

"Well, that makes sense then", said Ruthie and Willy nodded.

"Is it interesting?" she went on. "To watch them?"

"Er… It used to be. Sometimes. But now when the braces are on me it´s not that fun anymore."

"That makes sense too. I´m Ruthie Smallwood, by the way."

"I know", said Willy. "Everyone in school knows."

"And what´s your first name?" Ruthie seemed to have taken no attention whatsoever to what he had just said. "I always remember your surname. 'Wonka' is not very common…"

"My name is Willy", said Willy.

"That´s more common. But it´s kind of catchy isn´t it? Willy Wonka."

Willy tilted his head on one side and frowned. He had never thought about it like that before, but now when she mentioned it, he realized that maybe she was right.

They turned quiet for a moment, then suddenly Ruthie reached into one of her pockets and grabbed a small package of chewing gum.

"I´ve changed my mind", she said. "You can have one if you´d like."

But Willy shook his head.

"No, thank you. I´m not allowed."

"But they´re sugarfree. I promise! My mum gave them them to me because she thinks I eat too much candy all the time."

Willy looked down at the little package. It was light-green with white letters on it. The whole thing seemed somehow tedious. He had eaten sugarfree gum before. That was probably the closest he had ever been to candy. If she had offered him a chocolate bar, he wouldn´t have taken it, but it still would have been more exciting than this gum, especially since she was such a 'candy-person' and all.

"OK", he said after a while and held out his hand. Ruthie gave him a gum and in the next moment, the bell rang and all the other pupils rushed in through the door.

"I think I need to go now", said Ruthie. "But it was nice to meet you. Good bye."

"Good bye", said Willy as she ran away towards her classroom. Willy put the gum into his mouth and started walking in the same direction as usual, when he suddenly made a halt in the middle of the corridor. He almost got run over by the others as they passed him.

He had been stupid, he realized. Very stupid and quickly he headed for the bathroom, which was in the other end of the corridor. He pushed himself through the maze of students and when he finally reached there, he hurried to face the mirror.

Something hurt in his mouth. He had been a fool not to predict it. How, oh, _how_ could he be stupid enough to think that he would be able to eat a sticky, stretchy thing like chewing gum with this monster construction on his head? It had stuck somewhere between the steel and his teeth and it hurt badly. Willy bent over the sink to get as a good look as possible of the situation. It looked ugly too and disgusting. Willy realized at once that he could never return to class like this. He would have to get rid of it somehow. Quickly, he looked around to ensure that none was around, and then he carefully started to pull out the gum with his fingers. It was easier said than done and he tried to look at the braces from different angles in the mirror to see if he might be able to see how the thing was really working and how all the wires were connected. He almost figured it out but since he hadn´t got any dentist tools he couldn´t possibly get it off anyway.

He pulled and pulled until the gum loosened and immediately he shook it off his fingers, a disgusted look on his face. Then he washed his hands and hurried back to class, terrified of what kind of punishment he would get from Miss Pepper for being late.


	5. Doctor Stitch

**Doctor Stitch**

It was only ten minutes left, at last. The classroom was silent and empty except for Miss Pepper by the desk and Willy sitting in front of her. Her punishment of choice had been detention and Willy blamed his own stupidity for taking that awful chewing gum. The only sound to be heard was the sound of his pencil scribbling on the paper and the ticking noise of the enormous clock on the wall. He had been forced to do some terribly tricky mathematics, while Miss Pepper on the other hand, just sat there, staring pleasently at him and drank coffe from a huge cup. Willy could clearly hear every single gulp.

The quiet didn´t really bother him. It was her perpetual stare of evil satisfaction that made him uncomfortable. The feeling of being constantly observed; every move, every twitch he made, she watched. Every time he dared to look up, he looked straight at her small, demon-like eyes and swallowed. During a few seconds, in what was probably like a vision, he saw her mouth open to reveal rows of bloody shark teeth and he winced, his eyes going wide at the horrible, absurd thought. He quickly shook his head and turned his attention to the mathematics again.

"Now, what was _that_ about, Willy?" Miss Pepper asked, her voice dangerously calm, but her eyes were shooting bullets of thunder. Willy didn´t answer and to his surprise, Miss Pepper didn´t push him on the subject. Instead she said:

"It´s been three hours. Your time is up. Get your stuff and leave immediately and if you dare to be late again you know what´s coming!"

Willy rose eagerly from his desk and fumbled his books together in his bag. He couldn´t bring himself to utter a polite "goodbye" at the moment so he just rushed out of the door as quickly as he could, longing to finally get away from school and Miss Pepper.

Outside it was cloudy and rainy. The sun was gone and Willy tried to grimace despite the steel. He hadn´s brought an umbrella. Half-running, he left the empty, spooky quiet schoolyard and headed towards the centre of town. Cars passed by him on the street, rain splashing under the wheels. People on their way home from work hurried past him to escape the weather as much as possible. The air seemed to only be getting wetter by each second. For a moment, Willy hopefully wondered if his braces would get rusty and he decided not to dry them when he came home. His shoes and socks were soaked and he hated it. Also his thin jacket and trousers were wet, but somehow that didn´t bother him as much as wet socks.

Suddenly he slipped on the watery street and tripped over. He managed to catch his own weight with his hands outstreched but they got scraped and when he sat up, he saw that his knee were bleeding.

"This awful day is surely not getting any less awful", he sadly sighed to himself. Then he suddenly heard a foreign voice behind him:

"Are you alright, boy? That looked like a nasty fall!"

Willy quickly turned around to see a lean, middle-aged man in a worn out suit and big glasses, hurrying towards him.

"Er, I´m fine, thank you", he said and rose. But the man had already spotted his wounded knee.

"Oh, no, that looks rather bad, I´d say!" His voice was remarkably soft and he sounded worried.

He bent down to get a closer look and Willy recoiled when he did so. His purple-shade eyes darted around the area, as for looking for an escape path.

"It´s alright. I just want to look", the man said, but Willy knew better. If the stranger somehow thought the wound was _too_ bad, maybe he would try and get Willy to a doctor and Willy wasn´t very fond of doctors. They were a bit too… intrusive.

A terrible feeling came upon him. It started in his head and affected his sight. In an instant everything got slightly blurry and Willy froze. He didn´t know what was happening and he was starting to feel nauseous.

"I… I feel dizzy…" he mumbled in a quiet, confused tone. He didn´t want to admit that he felt bad, but never the less he desperately needed an answer to _why_ he felt as he did. But before the man in front of him got a chance to give him that answer, everything went black.

Willy opened his eyes and for a second he thought that he was entering a new world. But he wasn´t. He clearly wasn´t. He was still on the wet pavement, still soaked to the bone and the sky was just as cloudy as before. Heavy raindrops landed on his face. He blinked and tried to focus. A first blurry, but then more clear vision of a man in round glasses appeared, leaning over him.

"You´re back!" he cried in relief.

"Back from _where?_ " Willy mumbled in a hoarse voice. To him it was quite obvious; he hadn´t gone anywhere!

"You fainted", the man explained. "You said that you felt dizzy and then you just fell over. I hardly managed to catch you before you hit the ground!"

Willy blinked again.

"Why am I still here, then?" he said, sounding almost a bit annoyed.

"You´re not supposed to move anyone who has fainted", the man said calmly. "It can be even more confusing when you wake up then."

"How… How long was I out?" Willy asked and sounded slightly curious. As if the subject of fainting suddenly genuinly interested him.

"It was just a matter of seconds, so don´t worry."

Willy´s eyes widened in surprise. _Seconds?_ To him it had felt like at least a day. He groaned and slowly hauled himself into a sitting position. Except for his wet socks, the headache and some nausea he felt fine.

"Take it easy!" the man warned him. "You´ll be fine. But that leg of yours might need stitching, I´m afraid."

Willy winced at the words.

"Maybe it´s not that deep?" he said in his usual, childlike, small voice.

"I think it _is_ , unfortunately. You fell badly. I´ll drive you to the doctor."

That was a kind offer. It was, Willy couldn´t deny it. But…

"I need to go home. My dad will wonder where I am…"

His father didn´t even know about the detention and that was bad enough. Surely, Willy wasn´t grounded to the house, but not very far from, truth be told. Willy knew that Wilbur would never approve of a couple of extra hours absence. It really was lucky that he hadn´t been out of consiousness for more than a few seconds.

"We´ll give him a call from the hospital", the man ensured him with a friendly smile. "Is that alright with you?"

Willy thought about it for a moment, then nodded reluctantly.

"Good! Let´s go, then! I´ve parked the car over there!"

The man dragged Willy to his feet with gentle arms and not before then had Willy noticed that his right knee were wrapped up in a blue scarf. Willy looked at it with (surprisingly) happy eyes. It was blue and if this kind of occasions were going to be the only ones when he were allowed to wear colours, then so be it.

The kind man in the suit guided Willy to a small, round-shaped, yellow car by the end of the road. He opened the backseat door for him and Willy stepped inside. He sank into a soft, comfortable, but worn out seat while the man himself sat down behind the wheel. The engine came to life and they began to roll through the streets of the big town. Willy spotted the libray and stared at it sadly. Today he had wanted to stop by it on his way home to borrow some new books. They drove passed (Sweeney?) Todd´s mysterious little barber shop and the dusty music store.

"What´s your name?" the man asked.

"What´s yours?" Willy replied. He was, after all, in a stranger´s car.

"You can call me Joe", the man said.

He sounded honest but Willy was still a little doubtful.

"My name is Willy", he said, refusing to give away his surname as the stranger hadn´t done so either. But Joe only smiled in response and didn´t press him any further.

"Willy, you said?" Joe said kindly. "Well then, nice to meet you, Willy."

Willy didn´t respond. He wasn´t sure about whether he considered this a 'nice' meeting or not. So he just kept looking out of the window until they finally reached the hospital.

The hospital was a huge, dirty-white building which towered over Willy like some sort of palace of an evil emperor. He and Joe entered with Willy walking a few steps behind. It was almost as if he tried to hide behind the lean stranger. His eyes darted around, carefully on their guard. There were corridors in all directions around him and just in front of him, a big desk – a reception. That´s where they were heading. A far too stern-looking man for Willy´s liking, stood behind the desk. His hair were grey, his face thin and hollow and a tiny pair of glasses rested on his nose tip. His eyes were as grey as his hair and he eyed Joe and Willy with intense suspicion.

"Good afternoon, sir", he greeted Joe in a silky, flat voice. "How can I help you?"

His eyes then fell on Willy and Willy got the uneasy, but also annoying feeling that the man was looking _down_ on him, both literally and figuratively speaking. Willy tried to glare at him in response, but the grey-haired man didn´t seem to notice.

"Oh, it´s not me, sir, actually. It´s the boy, here. He needs to see a doctor…" Joe said.

"And why is that?"

"He hurt his knee. I think it needs stitching."

"Ah, is that so? Let me see, then. Step up, boy!"

Joe moved aside and nodded encouragely towards Willy. Willy reluctantly did as he was told. But quickly, before anyone else got the chance to do so, he untied the blue scarf around his knee. The hollow-faced man behind the desk bent over to get a close look. Then he tilted his head thoughtfully on one side.

"Ehm", he said. "You actually seem to be right, as far as I can see", he was now looking only at Joe and he spoke in a tone as if he definitely hadn´t expect Joe to be right. "I´ll see what I can do."

He reached for a phone behind the desk and that´s when Willy came to remember:

"Er, excuse me, sir", he said bravingly, looking up at the man. The man looked down at him, his eyes practiacally screaming in annoyance. Willy pretended like he didn´t see it and went on:

"Is there a phone here that I can borrow?"

"Just around the corner", the man growled and gave Willy a short nod towards one of the corridors.

"Thank you", Willy said, almost stone faced, and hurried in that direction. And the man was right. Just around the corner was a couple of small phone boxes. Willy chose the one with a red phone and frenetically searched through his pockets for coins. He found some and thought that it should be enough to tell his father what was going on. He put the coins in the box and dialed the number. It didn´t take long until he heard a much too familiar voice at the other end:

"Dentist Wilbur Wonka. Who is it?"

"It´s me, Willy…" Willy said quietly and Wilbur startled.

"Willy? Now, where have you been? Do you have any idea of what time it is?" Wilbur roared.

"Yes, it´s quarter past five", Willy said correctly, just catching glimpse of a big clock on the wall.

"You know that you´re not supposed to be out this long without my knowledge!" Wilbur went on. "We have talked about it. Where are you now?"

"I… hurt my knee, dad. I am at the hospital…"

"What are you saying, boy? At the hospital?!"

"Er, it´s not _bad_ ", Willy hurried to tell him. "They say I just need some stitches. I´ll be back home then."

"What happened?"

"I tripped over on the street."

He could hear how Wilbur sighed at the other end.

"You need to watch your feet better, son", he said. "Now, go and get those stitches done. I will come and pick you up afterwards."

"Oh, you don´t need too", Willy said as he immediately realized that he would much rather prefer going home in Joe´s yellow car. Also, his father didn´t even own a car. The fact that he wanted to "pick Willy up" only meant that he wanted to keep an eye on him. And Willy didn´t like that.

"I certainly will", Wilbur ensured him sternly.

"But… a nice man drove me here", Willy said, hoping that his father wouldn´t interrupt him. "Maybe he can drive me back too?"

In the corner of his eye, Joe suddenly appeared next to him. He obviously had heard Willy´s recent words because he nodded silently and smiled at him.

"No, Willy", came Wilbur´s voice at the other end. "It was indeed kind of him to get you there, but do not trouble him anymore. I am sure he wants to go home as soon as possible. It is, after all, getting late."

"But he says that he can drive me…" Willy tried in a small voice, but it was pointless.

"Do not trouble him!"

"Willy, it´s time to see the doctor now!" said Joe. Willy sighed.

"Bye, dad. I´ll see the doctor now."

Without waiting for Wilbur to say goodbye, he hung up and turned to Joe.

"I´m sorry. He didn´t want you to drive me home. Said I shouldn´t trouble you anymore."

"Oh, but there´s no trouble!"

"I know", Willy said in an understanding tone. Joe had agreed to take him home without Willy even asking for it.

"Well", said Joe and forced a new smile. "He´s your father so the decision goes to him, I´m afraid. But come on now, the doctor is waiting. I´ll be here waiting for you when you´re finished."

Willy gulped. Usually, he was the kind of person who preferred a lot of personal space, but suddenly he wasn´t so sure that he wanted to be left alone with a doctor. In a way, they weren´t very different from his father, but at least he knew his father´s methods and he was a dentist. Dentists only looked at your teeth, while a doctor… Well, he could look wherever he wanted. He remembered with unease that time when he had had a rough cold and the doctor must have been out of his mind because he kept listening to Willy´s heart even though it was his throat that hurt.

A pretty young, blonde nurse came to greet him.

"This way", she said. Willy followed her through the corridor, leaving Joe smiling behind.

They entered a light, white room with a desk, a bunk and a doctor. The doctor sat behind the desk, but looked up when Willy walked through the door.

"Hello there. Willy Wonka, is it?"

"Yeah…" Willy said, sounding a bit afraid. The nurse closed the door behind them and Willy´s eyes began their usual "darting around" again.

"Do… Do you _have_ to close the door?" he asked in a too small voice. The nurse looked at him, curiously.

"Well, it´s nice to have some privacy, isn´t it?" she said kindly and Willy secretly agreed. But it would be much easier to escape if the door was open…

"Sit down, Willy", the doctor ordered and Willy did as he was told. He sat down on the bunk while the doctor examined his knee and carefully cleaned the wound. It stung and Willy winced and grimaced but was careful not to show any obvious signs of pain. Although they probably saw it anyway.

"Does it _really_ need stitching?" he asked. "It doesn´t look deep to me."

"It´s not _that_ deep. But deep enough for stitching!" the doctor said happily, like he was in for a real treat.

"Lay down, Willy. Everything will be just fine."

Willy slowly leaned back on the bunk while he anxiously studied the doctor as he ran around the room, collecting tools and liquids with great enthusiasm.

"It´s an ugly wound. You´ll get a nasty scar", the doctor informed him, grinning while he filled a syringe. Willy looked at it suspiciously.

"What are you doing?" he asked in a tensed voice.

"First I´ll give you some anasthetic. Then we can start sewing!"

The syringe looked huge in his hand and he stepped towards Willy.

"Are you ready? Here we go!"

He apparently was so eager that he didn´t wait for Willy to answer. He just pushed the nail into his leg without any hesitation whatsoever and Willy winced for the second time.

"I… I didn´t say I was ready!" he squeaked.

The doctor looked at him, taken aback.

"You didn´t? Oh, I´m so sorry!"

Willy rolled his eyes.

"It´s just that this is the first _real_ thing I get to do today, you see. All day I´ve just been sitting at my office, writing, and every so now and then I´ll get to write some medical prescriptions for cough or other boring illnesses. You´re making my day, young sir!" the doctor tweeted excitedly.

Willy smiled a little at that and started to think that maybe this doctor wasn´t so bad after all.

"So… doing stitches is fun?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, it´s great fun!" the doctor said honestly.

"Are you good at it then?"

"Best in the hospital", the doctor said proudly. "Now, can you feel anything?"

He poked Willy´s leg and Willy should have hated it, if he could feel it. He shook his head. The knee was numb.

"Just go ahead", he said encouragely. "Have fun."

"Thank you! I absolutely will!"

Willy leaned back and actually felt quite relaxed. The doctor kept working while Willy mostly stared at the ceiling, dreaming himself away until the doctor suddenly cried out:

"I´m done!"

And he was. Willy looked down at his knee. The flesh was now neatly sewn together again and it didn´t bleed anymore.

"Thank you", he said quietly as he sat up and jumped down off the bunk.

"You´re so welcome!" the doctor cried. "Would you like a balloon?"

"What?" Willy said, confused. "A balloon?"

"Yes, the cildren are usually given balloons when they´ve been here. Would you like one?"

"What colour are they?" Willy asked.

"You can have blue or red."

"I´ll have the red one, thank you", Willy said.

"Alright, just wait here! I´ll be right back!"

The doctor hurried out of the room and within a minute he was back again, holding a big, bright-red balloon in his hands, which he gave to Willy. Willy gratefully took it and smiled happily at it with twinkling, playful eyes. He hoped that his father would let him keep it. The day suddenly didn´t seem so bad any longer.

"Good bye!" he said as he left the room. "I hope somebody else trips over soon for you!"

The doctor waved at him and Willy was out in the corridor again. He met Joe at the reception. He sat in a chair, reading a newspaper when he came, but rose immediately when he saw Willy.

"There you are!" he cried cheerfully. "All went well, I hope?"

Willy nodded. At that moment he saw a tall figure with black eyes and a stern gaze, enter the hospital.

"It´s my dad", Willy said, who instantly looked alarmed. "I need to go now. Thank you for driving me here!"

He reached out his hand. Joe took it and shook it slightly.

"You´re welcome. Off you go!"

Willy turned around and hurried to meet his father. He looked down at Willy and then he seemed to notice the balloon.

"What is that?" he said, pointing at the balloon.

"I got it from the doctor", Willy said. "Please, let me keep it!"

"Are you not you too old to get balloons at hospitals?" Wilbur grinned mockingly and showed his white teeth.

Willy only shook his head at that.

"Alright, you can have it. But this is the last time you are getting a balloon from a doctor. I never gave you a balloon for treating your teeth, did I?"

Willy quickly shook his head.

"And yet you have managed perfectly. Come now, let´s go home."

Wilbur turned around and headed towards the big door again. But just when he reached it, he suddenly stopped. Willy did the same.

"Wha… what is it?" Willy said nervously from behind.

"You go first", Wilbur said firmly. "I shall keep an eye on you."

Willy didn´t doubt him for one second and with a tight hold of the balloon he went out through the door, with his towering father following closely behind.

* * *

 **Well, some of you out there may now wonder if Willy just met Joe Bucket for the first time, and I´m actually not gonna tell you ;) I kind of added the hint just for fun.  
** **(The Doctor was actually a bit inspired by a real life-experience. I tripped over in an escalator years ago and when I went to the doctor, you could see how he really got weirdly excited about what he was about to do. Although I exaggerated it quite a lot in this story).**

 **By the way, since I´m pretty new here I´ve just come to think about how amazing it is that practically anyone around the world could read this, and that some people actually do. I suppose that this is not exactly the biggest of fandoms (I´ve never met anyone who is as crazy about "Charlie and the chocolate factory" as myself) so I didn´t really expect anyone to read it at all and I´m still surprised that none so far has complained about my English. I know it´s not bad, but still, it´s not nearly perfect and this is great practice, I tell you.  
**

 **Hope you enjoy the chapter!  
** **As always, reviews are welcome!**


	6. (A little update)

**OK, I feel like I need to make some kind of an update now. It´s been a while since I last published anything and I agree that I´ve been slow lately. My inspiration has been fading a little and there has been a lot of focus on my other, non-fanfiction stories.**

 **But as I´ve said before: I still haven´t forgot about this one and if there still might be someone out there who wants to read my work, I really appreciate it and will try to continue! Actually I _kind of_ have (almost) the whole story already finished, but in Swedish! So I need to translate the rest of it and I also want to do some edits.**

 **And then again: _please,_ don´t complain about me being slow. Because I´m _aware_ of that. Believe me, I am. Instead, review my story and let me know how to improve as a writer. Thanks.**

 **(P.S. I don´t really know what to make out of the rest of Willy´s spring! So maybe I´ll just jump a bit forward into the story, to where he discovers chocolate… )**

 **Also, I´ve been thinking a lot of writing stories for other fandoms. Maybe "Alice in Wonderland" or "Pirates of the Caribbean", but I´m also a great fan of BBC´s Sherlock and Doctor Who, so very well, we´ll see…**


	7. Chapter 7

**Right, so here I give you another chapter that I´ve been thinking about for a while. Unfortunately I can´t tell when the next one will come, but I´ll do my best.**

* * *

 **Smiling like the Joker**

Willy fighted frantically to get away, but the many threads of the spiderweb kept him down. A huge, black spider about the same size as a cottage, approached him out of nowhere and it licked its white, sharp teeth while it let out a yell of pure excitement.

"Yummy!" it cried and clapped all its legs at once in triumph. "My! What have we got here?"

It crept closer and Willy could feel the hairy legs brushing against his neck. He lay absolutely still, like paralyzed on the spot, not being able to move a muscle and he could hear his own heart thumping loud in his chest with terrific force.

"Ehem", said the spider in a thoughtful voice and tilted its large head on one side. "Now, which part should I begin with…?"

She eyed Willy from head to toe and then her eyes stayed fixed upon his legs. Willy´s eyes widened in terror when he saw this.

"The legs!" she cried out happily, sounding as if she suddenly had came up with a brilliant idea. "I´ll start with the legs!"

Then all of sudden, she took out a gigantic fork from somewhere in her fur. It was as big as a poker and shone like Excalibur in the air.

Upon this, Willy didn´t utter a sound. He wrestled vainly the web while being careful not to let the spider out of his sight. Without any warning whatsoever, she dug into his right leg and cut it through. The blood made a river as it gushed down on what was now left of his poor leg.

"Mmm! Scrumptious!" she croaked and chewed loudly, making crunching sounds with her teeth. Willy saw the remaining bones flying out of her mouth. Then she helped herself of his other leg. But at that moment, Willy felt something really weird: his mouth hurt. Which made no sense at all since the spider hadn´t touched it yet.

Carefully, as in a trance, he moved his hands up to his mouth and touched his lips. Something red dripped out of it and Willy let out a terrified yell, before he suddenly shot wide awake, staring into total darkness. He blinked in confusion before he quickly ensured himself that his legs were still there under the blanket. When realizing that they were, he almost gave out a cry of relief. Then he lit the bedside lamp and bent down to check if there might be any gigantic spider under the bed. There wasn´t. Just more darkness. But then something struck him; his mouth still hurt. Especially around the corners and Willy froze as an awful thought suddenly came to his mind. Slowly, he licked the cold steel and felt the similiar taste of blood. He moved his fingers towards the corners of his mouth and felt something dry and sticky. In a matter of seconds, he jumped out of the bed, turned on the lamp in the ceiling to get enough light and then stood in front of the mirror. He stared at his own reflection, wide-eyed and terrified. It was a horrible sight. There he was, wearing his ugly, uncomfortable braces which constantly forced his mouth into a perpetual, ridiculous smile around his too big, all-time fully visible teeth. And now his whole jawline was stained in blood.

At once Willy began to fumble with the mess of thin wires and connections at the back of his head. He had to get the braces off quickly and became more and more desperate as he felt the thick taste of fresh blood dripping down his chin. But he couldn´t see what he was doing and therefore he couldn´t get them off, no matter how many times he tried. Willy began to imagine how he would have to live with some horrible scars, reaching from the cornes of his mouth all the way up to his ears, for the rest of his life, like the Joker from the Batman-comics. That he, forever would have to wear a perpetual, sore smile on his face, like a clown taken straight from a horror movie set.

"Dad!" he cried out. There was no other way. "Dad!"

It didn´t take any longer than ten seconds before Wilbur Wonka was on the threshold, dressed in a white nightshirt, that looked nearly identical to his dentist coat. He looked tired, barely awake and he kept blinking as if he hardly could keep his eyes open.

"What is the matter of this, Willy?" he asked with a heavy sigh. "Why are you not in bed?"

"Look!" Willy cried in a panicky, high-pitched voice and spun around so that Wilbur could see his face. Wilbur´s eyes widened in horror at the sight and in an instant he was wide awake. He almost turned white in the face when he saw the blood.

"Jesus Christ!" he gasped. "Come here!"

Willy obeyed without hesitation and his father started to undo the awfully many settings of the braces. He even had to go and get a screwdriver at one point. In a couple of minutes he could finally get the thing off and Willy let out a deep sigh of relief as the rare feeling of a long gone freedom washed over him. It was an amazing feeling. Then his knees suddenly got heavy for some reason and he almost sank down to the floor. But he didn´t. Instead he raised his hands to check on the wounds, but his father pushed them away.

"Don´t do that!" he said sternly. "It is sticky and your hands will get dirty!"

"Will I get any scars?" Willy asked anxiously.

"Let me see…" Wilbur said and grabbed Willy´s chin. He studied his son carefully in the light before he gave an answer:

"No, I do not think so. It does not look _that_ bad. But you were lucky. It would have been, if you had not woken up when you did. Now, go back to bed. Meanwhile, I will go and get some napkins and antiseptics."

"What are you going to do with the braces?" Willy wanted to know. He stared at it, where it lay on the nightstand and desperately hoped that he would never need to see it ever again. But his father said:

"I am going to make you a new one as soon as I can."

And for a very short moment, Willy´s world nearly fell apart.

 _A new one?_

"A… A new one?" he stuttered in a most pitiful, squeaky tone. "A new one?"

"Yes", Wilbur said firmly. "A new one."

"But… But I don´t want a new one!" Willy cried helplessly.

"It won´t hurt you", Wilbur ensured him. "You have my word on that."

But that wasn´t enough for Willy. Not this time. He didn´t want some new braces, no matter what they looked like or if they hurt or not. He wanted freedom. On the bedside table rested his old, deserted braces. Its steel looked threatening and sharp, like those on torture devices. He shook his head at the bare thought.

"I don´t want… Look what they did! I don´t want them! I don´t WANT THEM I SAY!" he shrieked.

"You have no say in this!" Wilbur thundered. He grabbed Willy by the collar and lead him towards the bed. "What is the matter with you? Go to bed!"

"But I don´t wa-" Willy whimpered, but then he felt a rough burn on his cheek as Wilbur suddenly slapped him across the face. It had never happened before and the world went quiet for a minute. They both stopped dead in their tracks and none of them uttered a single word. Willy rubbed his bruised cheek and then he, very carefully, looked up at his father, his gaze big and questioning.

"Why did you do that?" he asked, but it came out more like a whisper.

Wilbur looked down at Willy and seemed just as surprised as his son. His dark eyes wandered from Willy´s sore mouth up to his (now) hurt cheek and then he turned away.

"Go to bed, Willy. I will be back in a minute", he stated quietly and walked out of the room. Willy didn´t dare to do anything but obey. He tucked himself back under the covers. In a minute, Wilbur came back, carrying napkins and antiseptic soap. He cleaned the wounds carefully and it stung terribly during the whole process. But Willy didn´t complain once. When Wilbur finally was finished, he walked out with a simple "Good night."

* * *

 **I thought that since Willy Wonka is of course a rather weird person, he would have a really weird nightmare ;) I wanted it to be something slightly between funny, scary and very absurd at the same time.  
** **About the abusing part: I think it was a one-off. Although Wilbur is indeed very stern and a bit mean at times, I´m not sure that he´s someone who gets physical.**

 **Anyway, hope you liked it! :)**


End file.
